1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water purifier for eliminating various harmful substances contained in original water such as faucet water or the like to thereby make the water potable, and more particularly to a filtering apparatus of a water purifier, by which the installation and removal of a filter can be simplified and filtering ability can be remarkably increased.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, a purifier serves to perform a water purifying operation by passing the original water or faucet water (hereinafter referred to as water) supplied from a faucet through a separate filter, to thereby remove foreign objects or harmful substances contained therein.
The water purifier thus constructed can be roughly classified, according to purifying method, into a natural purifying method, a directly-connected purifying method, an ion exchange resin method, a reverse osmotic pressure method and the like. Among these methods, a water purifier by way of the reverse osmotic pressure method is operated to perform the water purifying by applying a predetermined pressure to the water to thereby cause the water to pass through an artificial osmotic membrane, whereby heavy metal, bacteria, cancer-causing materials and the like are separately removed, and at the same time, only the pure water and dissolved oxygen are passed, enabling the same to be used for scientific industries, cleaning of hyper precision electronic parts and for medical use.
The water purifier having the above-mentioned construction is widely used as one for supplying purified water to private households and business sectors because of serious environmental pollution.
The water purifier thus described, as illustrated in FIG. 1, includes a water purifying tank 2 releasably disposed at an upper side of a pad 1 for storing the water, a receptacle unit 3 disposed at a rear side of the water purifying tank 2, a filtering apparatus 6 disposed within the receptacle unit 3 to eliminate various harmful substances included in the water supplied through a water supply tube 5 connected to a faucet 4, a purified water tube 7 connected to at the filtering apparatus 6 to supply into the water purifying tank 2 the purified water, and a disposer 9 arranged on the water purifying tank 2 for disposing the purified water stored in the water purifier tank 2 according to manipulation of a lever 9, so that purified water disposal can be possible.
Meanwhile, the filtering apparatus 6 for removing and purifying the harmful substances contained in the water includes, as illustrated in FIG. 2, an upper body 10 having an entrance 10a and an exit 10b connected to the water supply tube 5 and the water purifying tube 7, and a lower body 12 releasably disposed at a lower side of the upper body 10 by a fastening member 11. The lower body 12 is provided therein with a filtering member 13 for eliminating various harmful materials contained in the water, and the lower body 12 and the filtering member 13 form a water passage 14 for guiding the water. The filtering is formed with a central water passage 15 for circulating the purified water which has passed the filtering member 13.
Accordingly, when the water under a predetermined pressure is supplied into the filtering apparatus 6 from the faucet 4, the filtering apparatus 6 serves to eliminate various harmfull substances contained in the water.
In other words, the water infused into the upper body 10 through entrance 10a connected to the water supply means 5 passes through the filtering member 13 through water passage 14 to thereafter be turned into purified water, whereby the purified water is in return infused into the upper body 10 through a purified water passage 15 formed in the filtering member 13 to thereby be conducted to the purified water tank 2 through outlet 10b and the purified water tube 7.
The purified water stored in the purified water tank 2 is discharged through the faucet 9 according to opening of lever 8, so that disposal of the purified water can be possible.
Meanwhile, the filtering member absorbed with various harmful substances should be replaced after a predetermined period. At this time, when the lower body 12 is supposed to be removed, the fastening member 11 is pushed upwards and the lower body 12 is separated from the upper body 10 or assembled.
However, according to the conventional filtering apparatus thus constructed, there are problem in that draining of the water and the purified water is profuse from the upper body when the lower body is separated, and the fastening member is complicated in construction.
There are other problems in the conventional filtering apparatus in that replacement procedures of the filtering member are very inconvenient, and purifying capability of the filtering member is therefore decreased to shorten the life of the filtering member markedly.